In recent years, wireless communication services for automobiles and mobile phones have increased greatly in the variety and number, along with the concomitant demands on telematics service call centers. When a call center has too many incoming phone calls, it may not be able to process requests in a timely fashion. This process requires a large amount of dedicated resources including the time of human and virtual advisors, modem time, and additional software applications used by the advisors for processing requests. Requests may not be executed successfully or may need longer time to finish a process before the vehicle is shut off. An example of a subscriber request that may benefit from an increased level of automation is a user request for additional calling minutes to be ascribed to the in-vehicle phone.
Call centers commonly use a model of pre-payment for services to manage the airtime minutes that subscribers of telematic services use. Frequently, human advisors at call centers receive calls from users who wish to purchase additional personal call minutes. After an advisor has received a request for purchase, processed credit card information and authorized additional call minutes, the call center may replenish the call minutes for an in-vehicle phone by downloading new bundled units information through data communications based on standard modem connections.
Unfortunately, this method may use much of call center resources, particularly the time of a human advisor and time of modem use. As the requests to a call center increase, the call center may be unable to process all the wireless phone replenishment requests successfully or it may need longer time to finish the process. Customers may be put on hold and service may be delayed.
It would be beneficial to have an alternative approach to replenishing call minutes of an in-vehicle phone when advisor or hardware resources are limited. Ideally, this mechanism would be as effective as and perhaps more efficient than the current processing of call-use replenishment requests. An improved replenishment method would allow the user to call from any dial-tone phone and ease the strain on the call center by avoiding the need for a human advisor or modem. It would also allow the newly purchased call minutes to be downloaded to an in-vehicle phone in more than one manner. The method would avoid the need to queue or deny the request based on the unavailability of modem lines and advisors, simplify the personal calling replenishment process, and increase the quality of service of the call center.
It is an object of this invention, therefore, to provide a method for replenishing call-use authorization to a mobile vehicle, and to overcome the deficiencies and obstacles described above.